“Ihave to admit,” Nismera said. “I am proud. It took you long enough. Finally, I no longer have to keep up this fucking facade.”
I didn’t even see her move, but I felt the back-handed punch across my face. My back collided with the far wall, and I landed in a heap, pieces of stone crumbling around me. I coughed and shifted to my hands and knees as she walked out of her room with a predator’s grace, a wild, bright smile on her face.
“Honestly, I’m so glad you found it,” Nismera said cheerfully. “No more pretending to give a shit about you.” I didn’t even feel the air move before she was in front of me, landing a kick to my gut that had me sailing through the air again. I landed on the glass center table, soaking me in water as it burst. My breath whooshed out of me on a groan. Before I could sit up, she was on top of me, her hands fisted in my shirt. “No more caring about him.”
With seemingly no effort, she tossed me into the air. I slammed against the ceiling before gravity took over, and I landed with such force against the floor that my body bounced. Painfully, I rolled to my side, blood filling my mouth. Struggling to right myself through the agony of bruised muscles and broken bones, I rose to my knees. Nismera stood in the center of the room and took a deep breath. She seemed elated as if all her dreams had come true when she was the architect of destroying mine.
“So you stole a decree, made one of your trickster gods wear his face, then locked us away?” I spat. “For what?”
Her face contorted in disgust. “Gods, you’re stupid.”
“Why?” I seethed, pushing to my feet. “Why go through all of this, all the lies and manipulation, if you hated us so much?”
Nismera tossed her hands in the air in annoyance. “Even teaching you over and over you still can’t see. For power, you idiot,” she screamed. “For my throne, my kingdom, my realms. Not yours or Isaiah’s, and certainly not that half-wit Samkiel’s. Your very existence threatens what is mine.” Her smile returned and widened. “And you know what a predator does when it’s threatened.”
I laughed at her, and rage darkened her eyes. Her hands clenched, and I could feel her seething, but I needed to keep her talking for one reason and one reason only. “Pathetic. So instead of just killing us, you wasted years, eons, plotting and scheming, and for what? To finally grow tired of it?”
This time, when she kicked me, I went through a wall, landing back in her bedroom. Great fucking plan, Kaden.
“I don’t have the time or effort to explain my great master plan. I have more pressing things to do,” Nismera said, walking through the hole in the wall. She’d unsheathed her sword from her ring and held it in her right hand. It swung in sync with her opposite leg as she strode toward me. “Just know you’ve served your purpose in this life. You were a weapon for Unir, and then a weapon for me. You brought Ayla to this realm to be slaughtered, killed the great Samkiel, and now you’ll fulfill your last and only reason for existing. Your blood, along with his, will secure my reign here and beyond our stars. You did more than most that live, shit, and breath. Be proud and die with honor, Kaden.”
My breath wheezed in and out of my bruised lungs as I lay there trying to heal enough to move. Every word she spoke was like another blow, the pain of betrayal more intense than any wounds. One second she was halfway across the room, the next her boot was on my throat and her blade was buried deep into my gut. She rammed it so hard through my body that I felt my ribs crack from the force and heard the tip pierce the stone floor. My mind reeled as I tried to accept that I’d just been impaled by the one being I’d trusted and loved as much as Isaiah.
“I asked nicely, you know? All you had to do was give me your blood. That’s what I wanted, but you, Kaden, while you are my favorite, you are also my most difficult,” she said, twisting the blade in me. I couldn’t stop my cry of agony. Nismera’s eyes closed for a second as if the sound set her nerves ablaze with pleasure. “Pain,” she whispered. “The one constant in this world. It’s my favorite, you know? Let me know exactly where to hurt to make you bend.”
Her eyes opened, and she dropped her gaze to where the sword pierced me. Her smile died as she ripped it from my body and looked at it. “No.”
My body writhed, and I covered the wound with my hand, pain rippling through my ribcage. Her face was so twisted with cruelty that I was astounded I had not seen it much earlier. Or perhaps I had, and it had been obscured by my own. Now that it was directed toward not only me but Isaiah, my head swam with fear.
“What did you do?” she screamed, but she wasn’t talking to me. She spun, raging at the sky, the world, and then I saw it. My blood streaking her sword was not red but a deep, inky black. She sneered at me, baring her teeth as if she wished to shred me with them. “You. You are what he is using. You areDeath marked.”
A familiar power entered the outside room, and Nismera froze. Isaiah. This was for the best because, regardless of what I told him, he would need to hear and see it himself. Isaiah may be bloodthirsty and cruel, but when he loved, he was loyal. It would take an ultimate betrayal to make him doubt, and I knew it would take the worst to ever make him hate Nismera.
I rolled over, my hands slipping in the pool of black blood. Isaiah rushed to support me as I struggled to my feet.
“Mera,” Isaiah started, his eyes full of disbelief as he looked at me, then her. “What are you doing?”
“Killing him,” she growled. “What does it look like?”
Isaiah’s brows knotted, his confusion nearly palpable. “You have to be possessed. This isn’t you. You love us.”
“Gods.” She ran a hand over her face in disgust. She glared at him and snapped, “You’re lucky your fucking powers are helpful in battle because you’re as dumb as they come. You? Him?” She pointed the sword between us. “Mean nothing to me. Love? I never loved either of you. Do you not fucking get it? You were a means to a fucking end and half the time a useless one. I would have strangled you both as children had Zasyn kept her fucking nose to herself. Actually, I tried to get rid of you more than once, but of course, you had to survive.”
Pain suffused Isaiah’s face, pain and anger as he stared at her and then looked at me. I nodded, seeing the questions in his eyes. I knew he had to hear and see the reality of her, but I hate seeing his hurt. Isaiah released my arm and took a step away from me. He flicked his wrist and his clothes melted into his dragonbane armor, jagged, dark spikes forming over his shoulders and along his gauntlets. I knew he had just as thoroughly armored the heart she’d broken, although he would never admit it.
I took a few more steps to the side, circling out of her direct line of sight as she smirked at Isaiah. She knew I was wounded and had dismissed me in her delight at causing Isaiah so much pain. She was such a sadistic bitch. I donned my armor and stepped up behind her, leaning in close to whisper, “You lose.”
Her fist shot out, but Isaiah grabbed it, catching it in his massive palm and holding it tight. I took the opening and wrapped my forearm around her neck before punching her low in the back.
With his free hand, Isaiah yanked the sword from her grip and tossed it to the side. She gasped and arched, tearing herself from between us and stumbling away. It was a line drawn in the sand, a final reckoning. This was the beginning of the end, a fracture so deep and wide we would never heal. Isaiah growled, his canines elongating. I felt mine ache as my beast rose to the surface.
Nismera stretched her back and made sure to keep us both in her sights, but there was no fear in her. She gave us a cruel, wicked smile and yelled, “Guards!” The echo of her voice was still bouncing from the walls when she screamed again. “Guards!”
Isaiah’s eyes flicked toward the door, expecting a bunch of guards to charge in. It was a mistake to shift his attention away from her. She rushed forward, slamming her knee into his chest. My breath caught in fear as he sailed through the wall. Nismera’s smile was that of nightmares as she turned to me. She was so cold and callous. It was obvious where I had learned it.
“I’ll kill you.” I snarled, wishing that Isaiah’s powers worked on beings of great power. It would be so satisfying to watch her head explode.
“You won’t be around to do so,” she said with a soft chuckle. She snapped her hand down and to her side, calling her death spear to her palm. I moved sideways, and it sailed past me, embedding into the wall behind me. I knew she’d used it as a distraction. Expecting the strike, I lifted my arm to block her fist, but her kick landed. I grunted, but kept moving, struggling to keep up with her.
